The Burning of Bridget Cleary by Angela Bourke
Angela Bourke’s The Burning of Bridget Cleary: A True Story (1999) chronicles the far from ordinary murder case of Bridget Cleary in rural County Tipperary, Ireland in March 1895. Gruesomely murdered by immolation on her own hearth by her husband, Michael Cleary, who, along with many of Bridget’s relatives and friends were present when she …
Continue reading The Burning of Bridget Cleary by Angela Bourke
The Babysitter by Liza Rodman and Jennifer Jordan
Liza Rodman’s and Jennifer Jordan’s book The Babysitter: My Summers with a Serial Killer (Atria Books, 2021) chronicles Rodman’s 1960s childhood in Provincetown, MA. The book also chronicles Rodman’s interactions with Tony Costa, otherwise known as the “Cape Cod Ripper”. Costa killed at least three women in the 1960s; he buried their bodies in the woods after …
Continue reading The Babysitter by Liza Rodman and Jennifer Jordan
Serial Killers at the Movies by Christopher Berry-Dee
The degree to which crime stories saturate our cultural (re)productions, especially in North America, is alternately fascinating and troubling. As writers and directors adapt from real-life tragedy, what do their films lose or gain in eliciting fear and revulsion in their viewers? What are the ethics of this complex process? Christopher Berry-Dee’s Serial Killers at …
Continue reading Serial Killers at the Movies by Christopher Berry-Dee
The Good Girls by Sonia Faleiro
In the beautiful author’s note that concludes Sonia Faleiro’s The Good Girls: An Ordinary Killing (Penguin Random House, 2021), Faleiro connects the brutal 2012 Delhi bus rape to the deaths of the two young Indian children that are the subject of her book. The gang rape and murder of a young medical student in Delhi becomes an …
Continue reading The Good Girls by Sonia Faleiro
Two Truths and a Lie by Ellen McGarrahan
For me, the best type of true crime is the kind of text that blends memoir and nonfiction so seamlessly that the writer’s perspective and their reactions to the subject of their book seem inextricably wedded to the crimes the book recounts, as well as their consequences. Ellen McGarrahan’s book is just that. Two Truths …
American Serial Killers by Peter Vronsky
When I saw that Peter Vronsky had published another book, I couldn’t wait to read it. I had read his previous book Sons of Cain (2018) and found its overall argument compelling and original. Sons of Cain did an excellent job of not only drawing a thread between some of the earliest serial killings known …
Continue reading American Serial Killers by Peter Vronsky
Wish You Were Here by John Allore and Patricia Pearson
“I found myself asking, what would my sister have made of all this? Was I championing her cause or making a fool of myself? Our series had taken the police and the school totally off guard, and I was enjoying every minute of it. But was Theresa laughing alongside me, or scorning me for being …
Continue reading Wish You Were Here by John Allore and Patricia Pearson
The Hot One by Carolyn Murnick
Here at True Crime Index, we are especially interested in the intersection of true crime and memoir. The Hot One by Carolyn Murnick (Simon and Schuster, 2018) is a text I was drawn to because it is so interested in combining these two genres. The Hot One is so much more than its salacious tagline, …
Continue reading The Hot One by Carolyn Murnick
When She Was Bad by Patricia Pearson
Thoroughly researched and unflinchingly strong-willed, Patricia Pearson’s When She Was Bad: How and Why Women Get Away with Murder (2021) is a stunning addition to the true crime genre and, in 1997 as much as today, gives readers a lot to think about. Pearson’s text is a reprint of her 1997 book of the same …
Cold Case North by Deanna Reder, Eric Bell and Michael Nest
The synopsis for Cold Case North: The Search for James Brady and Absolom Halkett (University of Regina Press, 2020) captured me immediately. Two prospectors, Jim Brady and Abbie Halkett disappeared from the Northern Saskatchewan bush in 1967. After an extensive ground, water, and air search, nothing of note was found and the RCMP assumed they …
Continue reading Cold Case North by Deanna Reder, Eric Bell and Michael Nest
Loading…
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.
Follow My Blog
Get new content delivered directly to your inbox.
